JAWing On – Life on Okinawa

Another flower that thrives in the sub-tropical environment as the mini-monsoon season on Okinawa begins to come to an end.

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A less commonly known variety of hibiscus.

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As the official days of summer are upon us, the rain just keeps falling. With soooooo much rain one might wonder what people on Okinawa do to cope. The local school system seems to coincide with the lunar instead of Julian calendar. So, school-aged kids are busy preparing for the exams that occur prior to their summer break. And many retailers are full of shoppers just trying not to go stir crazy. As for me, I find that this is the time of year when it’s best to do some “spring cleaning”. Since humidity is a problem over here and every little nook and cranny that has any moister accumulated turns into a moldy mess. To combat this problem, the whole house gets a dose of elbow grease.

For those of you who feel like you’ll loose it if there’s one more drop of rain, don’t feel alone. It seems we have had a four day total accumulation of rain that is a record breaker. The past four days has given us more rain than the entire month of June for the first time in one hundred thirteen years! Good news is that the mini-monsoon season should just about be over.

One of the more unusual questions I’ve been asked by a local male while tending the bar at the club was, “Is being married to an Okinawan man better?”

I didn’t think this question could be answered honestly without an in depth discussion. Given the situation, being asked while I was busy at work, I also found it to be somewhat a leading question. So I just smiled.

If I had had enough time I would have explained that given that I have only been married once I have no point of comparison. Also, I married my husband for the person he is not because he is from Okinawa. I wouldn’t still be with him 31 years later and working with him every weekend for the past eight years if I didn’t like the person he is. Has it always been a smooth marriage? No, we even went through three separations. But given that we only dated each other 6 weeks prior to our engagement and were married 6 weeks after that, there were many unknowns to be worked out. Furthermore, the Okinawan divorce rate is the highest in Japan (the last time I had been informed of the rate it was similar to the American rate and stood at 50 percent), so I do think we are one of the lucky couples that was able to overcome the cultural differences in the expectations of what a marriage was as well as stereotypical images we had of each other’s cultures.

Do you believe philosophical “mumbo jumbo” can replace personal experiences?

If you want a “Big Mac” do you go to KFC for dinner? Do you think being intoxicated will change the KFC menu into a McDonald’s menu?

Well the blow hards (otherwise known as tropical cyclones) aren’t wasting any time this year. When I turned on the local American TV channel this morning sure enough TC-4 was posted on the station. Although it may be a few days premature, there is a tropical storm out there and once again the typhoon season begins.

Last night we had our 3rd Annual Unofficial Start of Summer Celebration. Although the bar got a little over crowded, it was worth it to be able to ignore the nasty weather that has been trying to dampen what should be a time for celebration. The start of summertime, there’s nothing else like it. Over here the summer season tends to be plagued with too much humidity, but the ability to spend breezy nights staring at the stars and munching down on an array of tempting barbequed edibles seems to create a balance.